The Hoefer Handshake
(click on photo to see a larger image)
From Chuck Phillips (C/D Employee #1) ...
Here's a 1980 photo of the group handshake completing the purchase ("merger") of agency hoefer, dieterich & brown, thus entrenching chiat/day in san francisco and putting them in a position to buy regis mckenna agency which yielded the apple computer account.look how bloody young chiat looked. the folks in the photo are (L to R) me, our wonderful chairman monty mckinney, "the admiral" (john hoefer who had a ship sunk under his command in WWII), jay, and john pelkan (HD&B's president and hoefer's son-in-law) who didn't last very long (i think I'm the only one still alive).
those two cultures were as alien as any ever put together. at the time i likened it to a marriage of the hare krishna with the catholic church. it seemed like a dumb idea at the time. but jay was about as dumb as a fox.
Comments
I dig those crazy bow ties.
I remember Monty as one of the loveliest people I ever met. How cool to see this. Thanks Chuck
Posted by: eve | January 28, 2009 05:05 PM
Great photo. John Hoefer was truly a class act. I walked behind him one morning when we were on Jackson Street in SF. As we turned the corner, we both saw a worker painting over the Hoefer name with white paint. It had to be shocking for John, but he never missed a step. For me, it drove home how it's all about business, not about people. I've never forgotten that moment.
Posted by: Bill Delaney | January 30, 2009 04:27 PM
Great photo. John Hoefer was truly a class act. I walked behind him one morning when we were on Jackson Street in SF. As we turned the corner, we both saw a worker painting over the Hoefer name with white paint. It had to be shocking for John, but he never missed a step. For me, it drove home how it's all about business, not about people. I've never forgotten that moment.
Posted by: Bill Delaney | January 30, 2009 04:27 PM
John Hoefer (the Admiral) was my grandfather and John Pelkan (the son-in-law) is my father (happily growing grapes for the wine business these past 20 years, having escaped the ad biz rat race). I was an 8th grader when this photo was taken and remember all too well this merger from the family perspective - I also remember Chuck...he was a weasel to Jay's fox.
Indeed, the Admiral was a tough bird - a thoughtful and passionate business man - loyal to the end - and deemed a hero for the many lives he managed to save when the USS Abner Read was struck by a kamikaze pilot in the Pacific. He had been a young officer at Pearl Harbor on the battleship USS Penn as well. He suffered valiantly through many brutal war and lifetime experiences that easily eclipsed watching his name white-washed off a building. In spite of the warning signs from my childhood, I also spent 2 years in advertising at Leo Burnett in Chicago - not nearly as Hare Krishna or Catholic as the SF or LA scenes - more like Methodist Buddhism of the Midwest. I still did not like the industry - never did trust advertising.
Posted by: Julie Glusker | December 8, 2009 12:43 AM
Gents
I enjoyed a tour at HD&B on Foremost account when they made milk. The agency was a piece of advertising history in SF that was held together by John with great determination. I worked at JWT in NY and at McCann in SF. But like life it is all fading into small black and white pics in the back of the mind.Cheers Tom
Posted by: Tom Sullivan | September 3, 2010 01:33 AM